Friday, August 19, 2011

Found Faces, Lost Names

I found a great blog. I am truly humbled. It calls me to task over a matter I’ve struggled with, and I do remember my faults this day.

True confessions: I’ve been swamped with the boxes and boxes of nameless faces framed prettily in decades-old photographs. When I go through stacks and stacks of pictures of the same scenes through umpteen iterations, I lose my resolve to serve faithfully as the family historian. And yes, regretfully, I’ve chucked more than my fair share.

What’s a two-to-three-generation-removed gal to do? I have no resources left—no great aunts or great grandfathers to ply with those endless questions to get it just so. So the fifteenth-billion picture of Lassie and company finds its way to the bottom of the trash can.

So sad. But I’m sure at this point, you are excusing me. At least I’ve been doing penance.

Yet today, I found confirmation that there is a way to resolve the issue. I found someone who has made one simple gesture her mission: to serve as matchmaker between subjects of antique photographs and their long-lost relatives. Such a simple goal, yet so elegant a pursuit.

I wish I had her platform. I mean, what do you do with a photo like this one?

4 comments:

Never throw them away, start a blog about them, give them a chance. If you know any names their relatives will find them and you! Thanks for the comment over on my blog, I just read it this morning. Working part time puts a real kink in my blog reading and commenting. In six weeks I will be off for the winter!! :)

I've another theory about the buildings in picture 1. Bill Bean's father was a general contractor and apparently built the Carnegie Library in Palo Alto around the time of the San Francisco earthquake (1906). The men hanging around this building look like workmen with canvas tool belts and such.

About Me

It is my contention that, after a lifetime, one of the greatest needs people have is to be remembered. They want to know: have I made a difference?
I write because I can't keep for myself the gifts others have entrusted to me. Through what I've already been given--though not forgetting those to whom I must pass this along--from family I receive my heritage; through family I leave a legacy. With family I weave a tapestry. These are my strands.